DIY Tips

Troubleshooting for When Your Dryer Won't Start

We’ve all been there, and if we haven’t, we someday will be -- standing in the laundry room, pushing the start button on the dryer, and wondering, “Why won’t my dryer start?”

When your dryer won’t start, you might want to call a service professional right away, but before you get out your wallet try troubleshooting first with the tips below. Usually, the problem is harder to pinpoint than it is to fix. If you can troubleshoot your own dryer repair, you could save some money. When your dryer won’t start, here’s what you should check.

If you’re wondering why your dryer won’t start all of a sudden, the very first thing you should check is your dryer’s power source. Make sure it’s plugged in, and go check the breaker box to make sure you don’t have a blown circuit. Often, the washer and dryer are on their own circuit. You can reset your breaker by turning it off and then on again.

Check to see whether your dryer is plugged into a ground-fault circuit interrupter (GFCI) outlet, the outlet itself might have tripped. Press the button on the front of the outlet to reset the circuit. If there are other GFCI outlets on the same circuit, reset those, too. If any one of them trips, your dryer won’t start, and neither will anything else plugged into one of the outlets on that circuit, until the tripped outlet has been reset.

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If your dryer’s door switch goes bad, then it won’t start because it won’t get the signal it needs that the door is safely closed. Test the door switch by pressing it down with your finger. If it doesn’t make a clicking sound, it might be faulty.

If the push-to-start switch goes out, it can keep the dryer from starting. If you press the start switch and you hear an electrical humming noise, but it doesn’t start tumbling, the start switch is not the problem. If you don’t hear a buzz, however, the push-to-start switch may be the problem.